Federal vs Provincial
In BC we unfortunately have a Liberal government. The BC Liberals are officially unconnected with the federal Liberals, a separation that occurred in 1987.
When I talk to people about this, people pretty much always agree with the statement that the federal and provincial parties are not the same. Wikipedia calls the BC Liberals a “conservative and neoliberal” party and the federal Liberals “generally sits at the centre”.
I don’t fit comfortably into any political party, its rare to find a good independent candidate in a riding. But what is more confusing is when I saw a tweet like this:
Congrats to my friend and good federal Liberal @jthornthwaite on being re-elected the MLA for North Vancouver - Seymour! #bcelection2013
— Taleeb Noormohamed (@Taleeb) May 15, 2013
Taleeb was the federal Liberal candidate in my riding and I was annoyed he supported our local Liberal candidate. Of course, there’s no reason he can’t do that, it’s just a friendly message. But it still annoyed me, because a politician I thought was the best choice in federal politics seemed to be aligning himself with a terrible provincial party that seems to have little correlation with the federal one.
And here’s the thing. It’s ok to vote differently for Federal and Provincial parties. Even if they were the same (which they are not), the issues are very different. The jurisdictions are different, the issues are different. Federal politics deals with broad swaths of the criminal code and tax, international relations, the military, overall budget. Provincial has it’s own set of criminal code, health care provision, education and the like.
Somehow it seems I’ve allied myself with the Liberals federally and the NDP provincially. The reasons why are complicated. As it turns out I didn’t vote for the NDP, because we had a much better independent candidate in Jamie Webb.
But don’t tie yourself down - think about the influence the politicians have and the parties independently in the elections. And don’t ask me how the US copes with just two parties all the time, what a bizarre system.